"I've long-liked the painter Ammi Phillips. He was an itinerant portraitist or "limner". In the time before photography, painters traveled around looking for clients. A lot of their work was anonymous, not really thought of as art. I like the often-strange human proportions and stiffness in this work. They were craftsmen, not polished like European painters. Ammi Phillips worked a lot in Columbia County, NY (where I live and the locale that Sister Kinderhook is based on).
I particularly liked his portrait of a young teen-aged girl, Harriet Leavens. Try as I might, I could not find any biographical information about her whatsoever.
Memorial pictures are another anonymous art/craft form that I'm a fan of. These were women's work. Eunice Pinney is one of my favorites. In one of her mourning pictures, she prepared a memorial to herself when she was 43 years old, leaving space on the tombstone for her children to fill in her age and the year of death. In an unusual undedicated memorial picture, she left space on the tombstone for someone to write the name, age and year of death of the deceased person. It was a blank and a business plan – she was pre-making memorials to sell.
You'll find a certain kind of verse on these memorial pictures. This is what Eunice wrote on the back of her own:
'For Oliver Hector Holcombe if he will get it framed:
Dear children pray now and then cast A sorrowful thought upon me,
You see where you'r coming at last. Prepare you for eternity.
This piece is the product of one week. Finished by your disponding mother June 13- 1813
Who worships the great God; that instant joints The first in heav'n, and sets foot on hell.
Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next, O'r death's dark gulf; and all its horror hides.'"
From Rasputina's website:
"I've long-liked the painter Ammi Phillips. He was an itinerant portraitist or "limner". In the time before photography, painters traveled around looking for clients. A lot of their work was anonymous, not really thought of as art. I like the often-strange human proportions and stiffness in this work. They were craftsmen, not polished like European painters. Ammi Phillips worked a lot in Columbia County, NY (where I live and the locale that Sister Kinderhook is based on). I particularly liked his portrait of a young teen-aged girl, Harriet Leavens. Try as I might, I could not find any biographical information about her whatsoever. Memorial pictures are another anonymous art/craft form that I'm a fan of. These were women's work. Eunice Pinney is one of my favorites. In one of her mourning pictures, she prepared a memorial to herself when she was 43 years old, leaving space on the tombstone for her children to fill in her age and the year of death. In an unusual undedicated memorial picture, she left space on the tombstone for someone to write the name, age and year of death of the deceased person. It was a blank and a business plan – she was pre-making memorials to sell. You'll find a certain kind of verse on these memorial pictures. This is what Eunice wrote on the back of her own:
'For Oliver Hector Holcombe if he will get it framed: Dear children pray now and then cast A sorrowful thought upon me, You see where you'r coming at last. Prepare you for eternity. This piece is the product of one week. Finished by your disponding mother June 13- 1813 Who worships the great God; that instant joints The first in heav'n, and sets foot on hell. Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next, O'r death's dark gulf; and all its horror hides.'"